There was in the mansion of Bishop's Merton one of those delightful
old chambers which, like a warm and benevolent heart, have a nook for
every one. It was a large wide room, with a recess on one side big
enough to have formed another room, and a lesser recess at each
corner, on the same side, made by two small square turrets, each
lighted by its own windows, and containing tables and chairs of its
own, so that the studious or the meditative, but not the unsociable,
could sit and read, or muse apart, without being actually cut off from
the society assembled. The walls were all covered with tapestry,
descended through many generations in the same family, and which had
covered the walls of a similar chamber in an old castle, partly
destroyed luring the civil wars of the Roses, and pulled down at the
commencement of the reign of Henry the Eighth.
Out from the tapestry, however, after an old fashion, which certainly
showed pictures to much greater advantage than when plastered upon the
face of the wall, stood a great many portraits of different degrees of
art, supported at the lower part by a gilt iron bracket, and upheld in
a slightly sloping position by an iron bar at the top. From the cold,
severe Holbein to the rich and juicy Rubens and the poetical Vandyke,
all the famous artists of the last two centuries had exercised their
pencils in pourtraying the features of a race which had always been
fruitful in beauty; and the history of the changeful mind of those two
ages was shadowed forth in the varying costume in which the characters
appeared. Nor is it, let me say, dear reader, in passing, a alight
indication of the state of the popular mind that is afforded by the
dress of the day. Look at the Chevalier in his long floating locks,
his silks and velvets, and at the Roundhead, in his steeple hat, his
straight-cut suit and prim cloak, each with his heavy-hilted sword and
large flapping gloves, and say whether Naseby Field and Marsden Moor,
and all the deeds on either part, do not naturally, and not purely
historically, connect themselves with such apparel; and then turn to
ourselves, with our straight-cut frock-coats, neat, close-fitting
boots, and other mathematical habiliments, which seem to have been
fashioned by the rules and compasses of a Laputan sage, and tell
me whether they do not plainly speak of an age of railroads and
steam-boats.
There, however, stood the pictures of the brave and beautiful of other
times, bending down over their once-familiar halls and the doings of
their descendants, as the spirits of the dead may be supposed to gaze
upon the actions of the children they have left behind; and there in
the oriel window, just about the time of day at which we commenced
this tale, sat a creature whom those long-gone bold warriors and
lovely dames might look upon with pride, and own her of their blood.
It was a lady of some twenty years of age, not very tall, but yet, if
anything, above the middle height of women. She was very beautiful too
in feature, with a skin as white as alabaster, and as smooth, yet with
the rose glowing in her cheek, and her arched lips red and full of
health.
I have long discovered that it is impossible to paint beauty with the
pen; and, therefore, I will say no more than may be sufficient merely
to give the reader some idea of what kind and sort hers was of, more
that the harmony which ought always, and generally does, in some
degree exist between the form and mind may be understood, than to draw
a picture of which imagination would still have to fill up half the
details. Though her skin, as I have said, was so fair, her hair, her
eyebrows, and her eyes were dark--not exactly black, for in them all
there was a gleam of sunny warmth which like the dawn brightened the
deep hue of night. The expression of her countenance was generally gay
and cheerful, but varying often, as a heart quickly susceptible of
strong feelings, and a mind full of imagination, were affected by the
events in which she took part, and the circumstances around her. Youth
and health, and bountiful nature, had endued her form with manifold
graces; and though her limbs were full and rounded in contour, yet
they displayed in every movement lines of exquisite symmetry, and,
like the brother of Joab, she was swift of foot as the wild roe. As is
often the case with persons of quick fancy, her mind, though naturally
of a cheerful and hopeful bent, was nevertheless not unfrequently
overshadowed by a cloud of passing melancholy; and a look of sadness
would occasionally come into her fair face, as if the consciousness
which is in most hearts that this world of glittering delusions has
its darker scenes, even for those of the brightest fate, made itself
painfully felt at times when no apparent cause for grief or
apprehension was near. But such shadows passed quickly away, and the
general tone of her heart and her expression was, as we have said,
bright and sunshiny.
Her father had been a man who took his ideas greatly from those
amongst whom he lived. In short, he attributed too much importance to
the opinions of his fellow-men. We may attribute too little to them,
it is true, and even great men are bound to pay some deference to the
deliberate judgment of many; but it is usually--nay, invariably--a
sign of weak understanding, to depend for the tone of our own thoughts
upon those around. However, as he was thrown into the society of men
who set great value upon accomplishments, such as they were in those
days, he had made a point of having his daughter instructed in all the
lighter arts of the times. To sing, to dance, to play on various
instruments, to speak the two languages most in fashion at the court,
French and Italian, with the ease and accent of a native, had seemed
to him matters of vast importance; and as she showed every facility in
acquiring whatever he desired, he had no cause to be discontented with
her progress. She might, perhaps, have been taught to consider such
things of much importance too; but she had a mother--the safeguard of
God to our early years. That mother was a woman of a high and noble
mind, somewhat stern, perhaps, and rigid, yet not unkind or unfeeling;
and between a parent weak, though possessed of talent, and one keen
and powerful in intellect, though not quick or brilliant, it may
easily be guessed which gave the stronger impress to the mind of the
child. Thus Annie Walton learned somewhat to undervalue the
accomplishments which, to please her father, she acquired; and though
she possessed less of the stern, calm, determined character of her
mother than her brother Charles, and more of the pliant and easy
disposition of her father, yet she inherited a share of high
resolution and firm decision, which was requisite, even in a woman, to
enable her to encounter the dangers and difficulties of the times in
which she lived.
She sat then in the oriel window of the hall at Bishop's Merton,
reading a page printed roughly on coarse paper, while now a smile,
somewhat saddened, and now a look of anger, somewhat brightened by the
half-faded smile, passed over her sweet face, as, in one of the
broadsheets of the day which had been left with her a few minutes
before by Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, she saw the doings of a parliament
which began by asserting the rights of the people, and ended by
attacking the just prerogatives of the crown; which commenced by
opposing tyranny and deceit in the rulers of the land, and ended by
far exceeding all the tyranny and deceit it had opposed, and adding
the most beastly hypocrisy and violence, fraud, rapine, and cruelty,
to the crimes and follies which it had found existing. She read and
smiled--she read and sighed; for, though her family had taken no part
in the deeds of the last twelve months, and though her mother had been
through life rather attached to the doctrines of the Presbyterians
than their opponents, yet there was something in the cause of the
Cavaliers, with all their faults, in their very rashness and want of
all pretence--something in the cold-blooded hypocrisy and false
pretexts of the Parliamentarians--which had engaged her sympathies on
the losing side, and roused her indignation against the successful.
While she was thus occupied, a horseman passed rapidly before the
window towards the principal door of the house, crossing like a quick
bird in its flight; and, casting down the paper, Miss Walton ran out,
murmuring, "It is Charles!"
There was a large old-fashioned vestibule hung with pikes and arms,
corslets and head-pieces, and stags' antlers, and hunting horns, and
all the implements of real battle, and of the mimic warfare of the
chase. The door leading to the terrace stood wide open, with an old
servant on either side; and as she bounded forward with the
expectation of meeting her brother, her countenance beaming with
pleasure to greet him on his return, a stranger entered, and advanced
at once towards her.
Annie Walton's face suddenly became graver, and a blush rose into her
cheek; but the cavalier came forward with a frank and unembarrassed
air, walked straight up to her, and took her hand as if he had been an
old friend.
"You thought it was your brother," he said, with easy grace, saving
her all trouble of explanation, "and you are disappointed, Miss
Walton. Would that I had a sister to look so joyful on my return to my
old halls! but your disappointment will have no long life. Charles
Walton will be here ere the world be an hour older; and in the mean
time you must show me and my poor beast fair hospitality till the
master of the mansion comes himself to tell you more about his friend,
Sir Francis Clare."
He bowed as he thus introduced himself, and Annie Walton, with all
courtesy, but with a grave air, invited him to the hall where she had
been sitting, trying to call to mind the name he had mentioned amongst
those of all her brother's acquaintances. She could recollect no such
person, however, as Sir Francis Clare; and although there was in the
frankness of the stranger's manner something that pleased her, yet she
almost thought it too free in one whom she could not believe to be
very intimate with Lord Walton. Yet there was a grace as well as an
ease in his demeanour, a tone not easily described, but which can only
be acquired by long, intimate habits of familiarity with persons of
high mind and education, a self-possession, distinct from impudence,
which showed her at once that the visiter was not one of the wild and
reckless roysterers of the court and army of King Charles, who
presumed without merit, and endeavoured to cover vulgarity of spirit
with self-confidence.
Leading the way then to the hall, she begged the stranger to be
seated. He bowed, and let her take her place, while he remained
standing before her, calculating rapidly what was passing in her
thoughts, and, to say truth, somewhat struck with the beauty of this
cynosure of neighbouring eyes, who, whatever he might have expected to
find, went far in loveliness beyond his imagination.
There was a momentary pause while she thought of what was next to
come, but the stranger spoke first. "I must seem very bold, I fear,
and somewhat too free, Miss Walton," he said at length, "in thus
treating you as an old acquaintance; but the circumstances of these
days engender strange habits of rapidity in all our doings. Rough
times abridge ceremonies, and besides, when our thoughts are familiar
even with these whom we have never met, a sort of one-sided friendship
grows up in our breast towards them which makes us forget that it is
not reciprocal. I have so often heard your brother talk of you, so
often conversed, with him of you, that I may think myself lucky that
at our first meeting I did not offend you by calling you Annie."
"It would have surprised more than offended," replied his fair
companion, with a smile; "but Charles will, I trust, soon make us
better acquainted. Have you seen him lately?"
"Not for five years," answered Sir Francis Clare; "and yet, sweet
lady, know more of his proceedings than you do who parted with him but
a week ago; not that he is deep-dyed in plots and conspiracies kept
from his sister's ear; but simply, because he wrote to me yesterday
one of his brief but comprehensive notes, telling me what he purposed,
and giving me a rendezvous here today, which I, with my usual
impatience, have run before by near an hour. I heard of him too, as I
came along, and though I found that I should be before him, yet I
hurried on--not to surprise his sister all alone, and make her wonder
what strange rash man had come to visit her, believe me."
"Such an object were little worth the spur, Sir," replied the lady,
laughing: "but if I understand you right, your friendship with my
brother must have begun when he was in France."
"Long before that," replied the cavalier; "but when last I parted with
him he was in Italy, where he left me to return to his own house. We
bade each other farewell under the Logga de Lanzi, in the fair town of
Florence."
"Oh! how I long to see that place," cried Annie Walton--"it is one of
the dreams of my imagination which, perhaps, may never be realized."
"Few dreams of the imagination ever are," answered her companion. "He
who gives himself up to fancy is like a man led by a child, who tells
him of all the wonderful things that he will show him in the garden of
the world, and when he comes to see the marvels, finds them but May
blossoms and brier roses, that fade as soon as gathered, and leave a
bunch of thorns in his hand."
Annie Walton raised her eyes to the stranger's brow, and gazed at the
rich floating hair that covered it, to see if she could trace any of
the marks of that age which has proved the world and discovered its
delusions. But all was youthful and open; there was nothing grey or
grave, and she replied--
"You speak sadly of this earth and its enjoyments, sir; and yet I
would not part with Fancy and all her pleasant deceits if I could."
"Never! Never!" cried Sir Francis Clare, eagerly. "If I may use a
paradox, sweet lady, the deceits of reality are ten times more
dangerous than those of imagination. If all things are delusions
except the hopes of a higher and a holier world, let us keep the
pleasant delusions at least, and they are those of fancy--but what
have we here?--The last news from London?"
"The reply of the parliament to the king's message," answered the
lady; "and thirty-one good reasons for rejecting his majesty's offers,
with the godly and soul-saving declaration of several pious men
concerning Popery and Prelacy."
The stranger laughed.
"How easy is it," he cried, "to cover gross treason, not only to king,
but to country, with fair pretexts of freedom, or to hide what they
themselves call the most carnal self-seeking with a garb of religious
zeal, and to give the fairest names to the blackest passions of our
nature! 'Tis a trite remark, but one that forces itself upon us every
day; and yet this is the trade that succeeds in the world, so that
gross deceit raises itself to high places, and sits in purple and fine
linen, while Honesty is left to beg her bread, and plain Truth stands
shivering in a ragged blanket."
"But I should think such barefaced hypocrisy as this," answered the
lady, "would deceive no one. People may pretend to believe it, but it
must be mere affectation, as bad as the hypocrisy itself."
"Your pardon, madam," replied the cavalier: "there never yet was
falsehood, however impudent, which, often repeated and told with a
smooth face, would not find many to give it ready credence. Not a day
passes but we see some monstrous lie, decked out with strong
assurances of sincerity and zeal, pass current with the multitude. Oh,
lady! there is an appetite for falsehood in the world that makes the
many-headed monster gorge the food, however dirty, and, like a hungry
dog, pluck morsels from the very kennel. Yet there is some truth, too,
in what these people say. I am not one to cover them with bad names;
for, alas! however wrong they may be now, the king put himself in
fault at first. The man who suffers himself to be compelled to do
justice to others, will, some time or another, have to compel others
to do justice to him; and he who has abandoned his friends in time of
need, will surely have to lament their loss when he has to struggle
with enemies."
"And has the king done this?" asked Annie Walton.
"Strafford, Strafford," said the cavalier, with a melancholy shake of
the head; "bold, firm-hearted, gallant Strafford. That fatal error was
the downfall of King Charles. Where is the hand that now shall raise
him up? Lady, when a general finds himself in a town about to be
besieged by the enemy, he strengthens his fortifications, and throws
down all the scattered houses and indefensible suburbs that might give
the foes advantage in their approach; but the king pursued a different
course: he threw down his defences, and maintained all the suburbs and
weak points. But this is sorry conversation for a lady's ears," he
continued. "What a fair scene does this window show! In riding through
the low ground I did not mark all the beauty around me."
"It is indeed as fine a view as any in the country round," replied
Annie Walton; "and often, when I feel sad at heart, I come and gaze
out here, and seem to find comfort and confidence from the sight."
"And are you ever sad at heart?" asked Sir Francis Clare, with a
smile.
"Not very often, it is true," she answered; "but still, in the present
disturbed state of the country, which is like one of those dark storms
through which one can see no glimpse of coming sunshine, I cannot but
sometimes feel fears and apprehensions--not for myself, indeed, for no
one would hurt a woman, I suppose, but for my brother; and when I am
thus depressed I need the sight of things which speak, with a voice
not to be misunderstood, of God's power, and his goodness too, to show
me that though the tempest may rage for a time, it will give place to
brighter hours at last, and perhaps in itself work benefit even while
it seems destined to destroy."
"Oh, may you ever feel thus!" cried the cavalier, eagerly; "for it was
such faith brought back the dove to the ark at length. Yet often, when
we see a world of roaring waters around us, and destruction on every
side, the heart will sink, and trust and confidence give way for a
time. But still," he added, laughing, "I am not one to entertain many
sombre thoughts; and if the gay companions of thoughtless hours could
know with what sad ideas I have entertained a fair lady, they would
recommend me a Geneva skull-cap and a straight black cloak. I can
assure you, our talk in the court is much less solemn. Except for an
hour in the morning, when we speak soberly of war and policy, as men
take a walk after breakfast for a good digestion, our days pass much
in the consideration of lace collars, the fashion of sword-knots, and
of how to get them. The world, I believe, and most of the things in
it, are not worth the waste of five minutes' heavy thought; and,
weighed in a just balance, perhaps, a madrigal and a charge of horse,
a sonnet of tiffany poetry, and the plan of a campaign, are matters
much more nearly of the same importance than we think.--But there
comes your brother, or I am mistaken."
"Yes, yes!" cried the lady, gladly, gazing out of the open window into
the valley, along which a small party of horsemen were riding: "he
will be here directly." And she and her companion, whose conversation
had greatly won upon her, continued watching the progress of the young
Lord Walton, as he rode rapidly along the valley, till he was hid
behind the high-wooded banks, near which, as we have already related,
he paused to hold a short conversation with poor Arrah Neil. They
wondered what detained him so long under the trees; but after a brief
pause he appeared again, and in a few minutes he sprang from his horse
at the hall-door.